Living Doll
by grazed142
Summary: post finale fic, pretty self explanatory. First fic, I hope its not too confusing. GSR...and obviously i own nothing CSIrelated.


The dress was black, somber and formal, a practical item of clothing that seemed, to Grissom, perfect for a funeral. As much as he cocked his head at it where it lay on the bed, silent and unimposing, he could not figure out what was wrong with it. But apparently something was. Sara, who was biting her tongue anxiously as she gazed at it, kept shaking her head. "This is ridiculous. Really. I'm not a bridesmaid, so why the hell are they requiring matching outfits? Why do I have to be one of six funeral guests to wear this monstrosity?" Grissom let out a confused breath and went through his mental checklist. No white after Labor Day. No corduroy in the spring. No bright colors at funerals. He was perplexed as to what the problem was here. "I don't see what's wrong with it," he said finally. Sara sat down on the edge of the bed, and Grissom followed. "Is this really about the dress? Sara, it's completely understandable to be anxious about your mother's funeral. I mean…" She shot him a fiery look. "It's about the dress." She rubbed her temples tiredly. "I just don't like dresses."

The funeral was tedious and uneventful. Sara had shaken hands with strangers and steered clear of her mother's coffin, and Grissom had shuffled around uncomfortably in his suit. As they drove home, Grissom snuck a few furtive looks toward Sara. She was gazing out the window in a contemplative manner, and the sun illuminated her skin, the lone tear track running down her cheek, the odious dress. In that moment, he realized that he had never seen her in a dress before. Skirts yes; dresses, no. Before he had gathered up the courage to ask her why, she leaned over and turned on the radio.

As soon as he unlocked the door to their townhouse, she bolted toward the bedroom. As soon as he opened the refrigerator in search of a beer, she bolted back into the living room. "Grissom." The desperation in her voice made him want to drop everything and rush to her, fix whatever was wrong. Instead, he gazed at her in a bemused way and waited for her to say something else. She was breathing quickly and her cheeks were flushed. "I need you to unzip this fucking dress." So he unzipped it quickly and watched as she tore somewhat wildly out of the dress, her back still to him, and stood shaking in her slip. For a split second, the only sound he could hear was her quick breathing in an otherwise vast silence. When she finally turned to face him, her eyes were tired and sad. "Look, Griss…my dad always made me wear dresses. He would say that girls should be like…like porcelain dolls. Beautiful but still, you know? Perfect yet breakable." Her voice held the bitter edge it acquired sometimes when she interrogated suspects. As his own breathing quickened, one fist clenched in fury at her father, she let out a tired sigh. "He liked to break things," she finished, the bitterness in her voice replaced by a strange calmness. It was as if she was reciting the ingredients for a casserole. Grissom reached up to run a hand through her hair. "You're not a doll," he said quietly. "You won't break." Sara kissed him, her lips traveling from his mouth to his earlobe and lingering there. The hotness of her breath made hairs on the back of his neck stand up. "I know," she whispered into his ear.

Two months later, she was gone. The miniature was chillingly beautiful in its perfection. Grissom had little doubt that Sara lay in the harsh desert mud just as her miniature did, unmoving but for a futile wave of her hand. As he stood in the layout room with the team, staring down at the little box, his stomach dropped again and again. His mind was in overdrive, whirring desperately through different search and rescue plans that were occasionally interrupted by a random memory. Sara frowning as she flicked dog hair off her pants. Sara choosing cereal at the supermarket, her mouth unconsciously forming a concentrated pout. Sara biting his lip. Nick interrupted this mental slideshow by slamming his fist down on the table in frustration. "She could be anywhere!" Warrick pursed his lips and spoke. "Let's just go through it. It's about control. Natalie wants Sara's destruction to be completely within her control. By making these miniatures, she's distanced herself from the victims, dehumanized them. She's turned them from people to dolls, so that she can control them and feel no sympathy. Natalie loses control if we find Sara, because we mess up her miniature scenario. So Sara has to be somewhere that she…can't be found." He trailed off, feeling exasperated and lost. Catherine tapped a manicured nail against the table nervously and Greg stuffed his hands into his pockets. "I still can't believe she's made a doll out of Sara," he murmured quietly. "What if the doll stops moving? What if it breaks?" Grissom's mouth felt impossibly dry. "Sara is not a doll," he said firmly, pretending that she could hear him.

There was mud and there was rain and there was a car on top of her. She wasn't cold, but she was pretty sure she had hypothermia. She would not panic. Sara Sidle did not panic. At first, she thought of ways to free herself. And after it became clear that this trap was far too strong, she wondered whether the miniature killer had brought her here. And after these musings became too chilling, she thought of the way the ocean smelled. She thought of Greg's strange affinity for Marilyn Manson and Warrick's eyes and Catherine's flawless sense of style and Nick's laugh. She thought of Grissom. The way he frowned when he did a crossword puzzle, the way he looked at her when he thought she didn't notice, the warmth of his embrace, the bad jokes he told. _"So Sara, one day this snail knocked on a door. When the woman opened it and saw the snail, she threw him into the garden. Two weeks later, the snail knocked on the door again. When she opened the door he said, 'what was that about?'" _She had pursed her lips and tried not to smile, finally laughing when he began telling her about the average velocity of snails. Sara kept moving to keep from falling asleep. The mud darkened her skin and coated her body more and more as the rain came down. She concentrated on keeping adrenalin coursing through her body. The one hand that was not trapped underneath the car she kept in plain sight, flexing her fingers and digging into the dirt.

She was very barely awake when they found her. Gazing at Grissom as ambulance sirens glowed red and blue in the night sky behind him, she was sure he was an angel. He cupped her cheek in his hand and cried as he talked to her, and the tears that fell from his face to hers were so much warmer than the rain. "You're okay," he told her again and again, because they both needed to hear it. Greg hovered around her and annoyed the paramedics with constant questions on her behalf. Catherine may have been crying. Nick stood strangely still and silent while Warrick yelled instructions that Sara couldn't quite understand. Half delirious, she told Grissom the snail joke, and he felt her forehead and yelled that the ambulance better get here _now. _Then she was being covered in blankets and loaded into the ambulance, and it was hard to believe that she was safe. She had been rescued. She had survived. She had remained unbroken.


End file.
